English capitalization may appear simple at a glance but most people still make mistakes in capitalizing some words. For instance, some people do not know when and where to capitalize the word “birthday.” It can be confusing since we frequently see it in greetings and titles, but is the word “birthday” capitalized? Before we conclusively come to an answer, let’s evaluate it with standard English capitalization rules.
1. Capitalize the first word of a sentence. For example: Happy birthday John.
Following the conventional capitalization rules, birthday is not capitalized in this case.
2. Capitalize pronouns and other names of such special occasions. For example:Â Tomorrow will be Jane’s Birthday.
Birthday, in this case, falls under special occasions, so it is thus capitalized.
3. Capitalize months, days and holidays but not seasons. For example: His birthday will be on 23rd April which is next Monday.
However, there are exceptions to the above capitalization rules.
1. When using quotes in a sentence. In this case, capitalizing both “Happy” and “Birthday” is acceptable. For example: Andrew wished her “Happy Birthday”.
2. When using the phrase as a title case every word in the phrase is capitalized. For example:Â Helen’s Birthday Party.
So, is birthday capitalized? The answer depends on the sentence structure as seen in the examples above.
Want to learn more title capitalization rules? Try out our free title capitalization tool.